


Pain

by imsfire



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Hoth setting, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Jyn, Jyn has a busted back, protective cassian, rated for swearing because Jyn is swearing Quite A Lot, warning for minor descriptions of back pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:58:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15694173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: Jyn has a slipped disc; pain relief and trying to keep warm and active is helping, but she misses Cassian.





	Pain

**Author's Note:**

> I realised a little while ago that I've written far more hurt/injured/unwell Cassian than hurt/injured/unwell Jyn. So I thought I'd redress the imbalance just a little bit.

It galls Jyn to admit it, but she’d find her injury easier to bear if it had happened in the line of duty.  But to have taken up a bed in med-bay and a doctor’s time, to be using precious analgesics, when all she did was over-extend helping to move a console out of the briefing room; it’s just humiliating.

Right now, she’s doped up like a tantaun on a transport.  She can move about her quarters, she can walk and lie down, and bend into a seat if she takes her time about it.  Just.  But her back isn’t going to get better for a good while, and krif it, it’s no good, she needs the painkillers.

“A herniated disc is a serious matter,” the 2-1B had told her when she discharged herself.  “It’s advisable to keep warm and remain active.  Take the pain-relief medication and request assistance if needed, and please refrain from any further heavy lifting.”

Assistance! Krif that.  There are only two people Jyn trusts enough to help her, and neither one is on base at the moment.  And as for keeping warm – how in the stars is she meant to keep warm, on Hoth?  There’s only _one_ person she trusts to help her with that.

Remain active; but she’s in too much pain, even with the meds, to do any exercise beyond simple walking.  So Jyn walks.  Round the whole maze of tunnels, ice-white and glassy, stomping along clumsily through each barracks in turn, through each level, right through the whole base in a loop.  Pressing down on her emotions, on the fear of falling, because fear is useless if it doesn’t guide you to safety, and she’s as safe here on base as anywhere she’s been in her life.  No reason she should fall anyway, her boots have proper treads, she’s just walking for fuck’s sake.  Just keeping active and warm.  Fucking doctor’s orders.

By the time she’s completed her second circuit of the main levels it’s evening, and she’s pleasantly warmed up, and definitely tired.  She hobbles to the mess for a bowl of stew, then one more walk, back to quarters, genuinely looking forward to her cot even though once again she’ll be sleeping alone. 

She even manages to get to sleep lying flat, as ordered, instead of in her usual tight defensive ball.

In the morning she wakes curled up again, a lifetime’s instinct having reasserted itself overnight.  She can barely move.  Every muscle seems to have set solid as duracrete.  Her lower back is rigid and when finally she manages to sit up, it feels as though her hip girdle will split in two, like there’s a bombed ice-floe inside her.

Krif, krif, krif. 

Jyn takes a double dose of the painkillers and forces herself to get up.  Drags herself into the ‘fresher, hauls on the necessary layers of clothing to retain body heat, slogs out of the room and into the corridor.  She makes her way to the mess hall for a much-needed kaf and some hot carb mush, and then – well, she’s still on medical leave, so there’s nothing for it.  She puts her head down and sets off on another trek through the base.  Active.  Keep warm and keep active.  Don’t fall over.  Fuck the kriffing fucking fuck, fuck every disc in her fucking spine…

She knows how Cassian felt now.  Why for months he would grunt, a little stifled sound, when he first woke; why his jaw had been locked tight as a Hutt’s credit line every morning when he had to get out of bed.  Why even now he would sometimes wince at random moments, when he had made some natural unguarded movement like looking round at the person behind him in a line, or setting down a cup on the table. 

All those weeks he was hospitalised, all those months he was unfit for field work.  How did he endure it?

She’s thinking of Cassian when she passes the way into Command.  Thinking of him; and she glances over as the doors slide open, and he is there.

He startles at the sight of her and steps back, smack into K-2.

“Cassian!” she says in surprise.  She didn’t know he was back. 

“Jyn!” As if he hadn’t known she was here either. 

“Jyn,” says K reprovingly.  He probably _had_ known, damn his cheeky oculars. 

When Cassian hugs her she wants to hold him close, but the simple movement of raising her arms seems to pull on her back in a way she’d never realised it could, and she winces.  He flinches away as he feels her stiffen, and there’s a lifetime’s worth of rejection and shutting of doors in that instinctual reaction.  It’s just one more pain, and one pain too many for Jyn.  She grabs at his arm before he can move back any further.  She’s been missing him, wishing for him, and he’s here.  She cannot brush off his presence, or his sudden nervousness around her, as though neither means a thing; not when both mean so much to her.  They’ve shared a room, shared a bed even, found comfort in one another’s presence when there was no other good thing in the universe.  She can’t let go now.

He’s still trying to move away, to give her space, or himself, and she catches hold of his sleeve.  The motion makes her lurch and suck in a breath, stifle a gasp. 

“You’re in pain,” observes K.

Cassian’s eyes widen and narrow again, taking in her awkward stance, pairing it with the fact she hasn’t said anything about being hurt. “Is that true?  Are you okay?”

“I, uh –“ - ah, the hells, he’ll work it out anyway if she doesn’t tell – “I bust my back a bit.  I’m out of the field for a week.  It’s – it’s still tender.”

There’s a pause and she looks from one to the other, daring either of them to say anything like _Now you know what it’s like_.

Neither does.

Instead, Cassian bites his lip and asks “Do I want to know what happened?”

That kriffing console… “No, no you don’t.  It was an accident.”

“There’s a 67% likelihood that you are concealing having been injured on active duty,” K-2 says. “You don’t need to lie to Cassian, he is aware of –“

“Not this time,” Jyn interrupts quickly. “Honestly.  It was just a really – _really_ – stupid fucking accident.”

“Okay.  I believe you,” Cassian tells her. “K, would you go to my quarters and get that cushion, please?  Meet us at Jyn’s room.”

K lopes off, leaving them in the passage, and he adds with a sigh of self-deprecating laughter “It’s really old and kinda ugly but it works.”

“What, K?”

The laugh opens out for a second, silently, into a long huff of happy breath and a real smile. “No!  I have an old heat-cushion.  Let me get you back to your quarters and you can borrow it.  I use it for my spine sometimes.  It’s really, really good.”

She has no idea what a heat-cushion is but, the hells, it has heat in the name, it has to be good.  Anything hot is delightful in this place, hot food, hot kaf, hot engine housing, Cassian’s hand touching hers. “That sounds nice.” She’s hanging on to him, and it feels good not to have to let go. “Are you going to walk me home, Captain?”

“Well, my debrief is over, so –“ he shrugs, with another quick smile – “If you’d like?”

“I would like.  Very much.”

He draws her arm through his so that she can lean on him.  They start down the long white corridor towards the south-east barracks and officers’ quarters.  Jyn keeps hold.  The irrational fear of falling has vanished and the basic truth of the matter is, Cassian’s here and she feels safer and less in pain for being near him. 

He squeezes her hand.

She can tell herself now that she doesn’t really need the support.  But it’s good to have it nonetheless. 

Maybe he’ll stay beside her tonight, so she can relax, so that sleep will help instead of hurting. 

Maybe he’ll stay.  Maybe he can’t.  But for now – he’s here, he’s alive and well and walking beside her, supporting her as in the past she’s supported him; and she says with all the feeling in her “I’m glad you’re back.”

So very glad.


End file.
